Memo To McCain: Don’t You Do It!

Speculation is growing the John McCain is considering pro-choice Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for VP. Listen to me carefully Senator, Don’t … You … Do … It! Don’t even think about it!

First, she has been an advocate for embryonic stem cell research and has voted for it numerous times. I know that McCain is not great in this are either. The bottom line is that KBH is pro-choice.

But Patrick, a look at the NRLC voting record analysis shows her at 75%, not all that different than McCain. True. But that voting record may not tell the whole picture. The Republican Coalition For Life has this to say about Senator Hutchison:

Issue-specific organizations often publish voting records or scorecards indicating how Members of Congress vote on legislation related to their particular cause. In the case of life issues, voting records can be misleading when you are trying to find out how a legislator really stands.

A case in point: “Hutchison’s allies note that of 37 ‘key votes’ listed by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) the senator voted against the group’s recommendations only once since 1997 — on a resolution affirming support of the court decision [Roe v. Wade] that legalized abortion.” (Ft. Worth Star Telegram, 12/19/04)

The truth of the matter is, Senator Hutchison is on record as supporting legal abortion until viability.

She has said she wants the pro-life plank removed from the Republican National Platform. She serves on the Honorary Advisory Board of The WISH List, a political action committee that raises money for Republican female congressional candidates who are pro-abortion-choice, from which she received $34,500 in her first Senate race.

Senator Hutchison is not pro-life, but if you rely solely on her voting record as presented by NRLC or others who track congressional votes, you would never know that.

The contradiction between her NRLC voting record and her true pro-abortion position is due to that fact that the pro-life legislation Senator Hutchison has voted on has been regulatory or restrictive in nature, only limiting to some extent the degree to which abortions may be performed or funded. Those votes do not reveal her true pro-abortion position because there have been no recorded votes in Congress on the fundamental question of legal protection of innocent human life from conception. Until we have such a vote, which would uncover politicians who want to appear to be “pro-life” but in reality support legal abortion, pro-life voters should avoid basing their support for candidates on voting records alone.

Bottom line, her votes to affirm Roe v. Wade and her comments about removing the pro-life plank disqualify her in my mind as a suitable VP pick. We need someone on the ticket who is dyed in the wool pro-life. Believes it. Not some wishy-washy pol who you think you can get by the pro-lifers and who might appeal to a wider audience because she is a woman.

So Senator McCain, like I said, don’t even think about it. If you screw this up by trying to be too clever, the pro-lifers will sit home. Believe it, and without them you lose. Period.

You want a woman on the ticket, choose Sara Palin. Leave KBH in Texas.